McLauchlan recalls taming Buenos Aires bearpit back in 1969

IAN McLauchlan knows a thing or two about facing Pumas' packs and the former Test prop is confident Scotland can repeat the tour experience he enjoyed the last time Scotland won on Argentine soil if they display real solidarity.

McLauchlan, nicknamed "Mighty Mouse" in his day, was a key figure in Scotland's first-ever tour to Argentina, in 1969, when the team lost the first Test and won the second, in Buenos Aires.

It was a tour Jim Telfer, the then skipper and later Scotland coach, has said was the making of three inexperienced Scotland forwards – McLauchlan, Sandy Carmichael and Alastair McHarg – who would go on to serve Scotland well.

They were similarly based in Rosario early in the tour, though they also had the bullets of civil unrest shooting across their hotel roofs to add to the intensity of a first visit to South America.

Both Test matches then were in the capital, but there was a significant change from the first to the second. "I only had two caps when I went on tour, but we were all really excited about going there," recalled McLauchlan. "Wales had been the first home nation to go and were thumped the year before, so we knew it would be tough, but probably didn't realise how tough.

"The provincial games were rugby in the raw, to put it mildly. They were very basic; brutal in fact. Then they used local referees who swayed to the local boys. I will always remember they spoke perfect English until selected for the internationals and then they couldn't speak to us, or understand us, apparently.

"We played very well in the provincial games, but suffered a lot of injuries. They'd kick the ball in the air a lot, wait until it was six feet above our guy's head and then wipe him out, and were never penalised. Colin Blaikie, our full-back, took regular punishment and Ian Murchie, the centre, took a double straight-arm tackle from Alessandro Travaglini early in the first Test and was badly injured.

"Travaglini was the dirtiest player I ever played against, and I played a few, and he went on to score two tries in that first Test which upset us.

"I wasn't young – I was 27 I think – but this was a new level of physical confrontation for all of us and we just had to learn quickly to look after yourself. So, you found ways to deal with it – some legal, some not – but it certainly toughened us up and helped strengthen the Scottish pack for the next few years. It would be nice to think the current squad have learned and will come back stronger."

Scotland lost the first Test 20-3, three tries to one, but matched their hosts much better in the second and final Test and after Carmichael scored a try and Blaikie a fine penalty the Scots hung on as fists and boots flew for a 6-3 victory Telfer still rates as among Scotland's best-ever.

While there have been many changes in the game in the intervening 40 years, the key to success for McLauchlan's men may still have a bearing in the current Test series.

"The physicality is something our boys really have to learn," he said, "but maybe they will come back from this tour pretty fired up the way we were in 1969.

"The Under-20s experienced the same thing with the South Africans this week. The tremendous oomph they have at the breakdown – we have to match that. We're outmuscled because our boys are as big as any with the training they do now; it's a mental attitude.

"Obviously, the ref let them away with offsides and boys lying in rucks which was the same in 1969. Then, you just booted them in the back and when they were writhing about you told them 'that's what you get for going offside'. We agreed during the district matches that if one of our players was punched, we all hit the next man, and that quietened them a bit.

"The guys can't do that anymore, but they must still have to stand up and say, collectively, 'we are not going to be bullied; we'll not be pushed off this ball'. If they do that as a collective unit and stick together then the other side will get the message."